


Don't You Remember?

by jane_x80



Series: Couples Therapy [8]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e23 Hiatus Part I, Episode: s03e24 Hiatus Part II, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Hiatus, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:42:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6171394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_x80/pseuds/jane_x80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place way before Couples Therapy, starting with Hiatus Parts I & II.</p><p>After the explosion and Gibbs' loss of memory, he does not remember Tony at all, and when he leaves for Mexico, Tony is left to cope with the team, the team's loss, and his own very personal loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So are you guys ready for this? Another Adele angsty song inspired this story. I was listening to [Don't You Remember](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYM0oL6RPvg) (click to listen) and I thought, wow, it's perfect for Tony's miserable time when Gibbs forgets him after the explosion in Hiatus, and post-Hiatus.
> 
> This is all Tony's POV. I'll do a separate story for Gibbs' POV.
> 
> I wanted to go back and explore the Couples Therapy 'verse Tony/Gibbs to see what their rocky times might have looked like. I also wanted to see a more volatile Tony - given that years later he's still fairly hotheaded when it comes to his relationship with Gibbs, I thought surely he would have been even more volatile in the past, during times that were much more stressful. Hopefully it turned out OK. I can't look at this and keep messing with it anymore. :)
> 
> Spoilers for Hiatus Parts 1 & 2, S3 Boxed In, bits of Season 4

The worst part was that things had finally been great between them.

In the five years of being in a relationship, sharing passionate moments, a deep and intense love, they had also had amazingly passionate fights – knock down, drag outs, truth be told. But despite it all, despite all the fights, the cheating on each other, all the cold silences, all the arguments about too much fucking time spent on the boat, or spent on personal grooming, and arguing about just about everything they could argue about, even arguing about the things they actually agreed on, disagreeing on the reasons why they agreed on things, but despite all that they still couldn’t hide from the intensity of their feelings for each other. They had finally evolved to a more stable and – dare he even say – healthy relationship. They had started to talk about moving in together, and to hell with the consequences – to hell with their ability to do their jobs in a DADT environment which, while it did not directly apply to them, was sure to affect them seeing as how they were Navy cops. It might also affect their ability to continue to work together on the same team, and definitely do bad things to their reputations. But it had been so good between them that it might have been worth all that. The past year had finally been good for them. Great. Amazing, even. It was like nothing that he had ever experienced, not even with Wendy, who he had meant to marry and be with for the rest of his life. His feelings for her were nothing compared to what he felt for his boyfriend and how he felt when they were together.

They’d finally worked things out. They hadn’t had a real fight in months, and that last fight had been dumb anyway – about how Ziva had invited everyone but him to dinner, and his boyfriend had gone without him – and he had found out about it after a stressful day involving being stuck in a box, being shot at, and burning counterfeit money. They were supposed to keep work and non-work completely separate. It was the only way they could make things work. So his boyfriend had gone to this dinner and had not told him about it – Tony had just assumed he was going back to work, as he did all the time. 

After the harrowing day in the container and the revelation that Ziva had hated him enough to actively exclude him from a team get together, and that his boyfriend had not only known about this dinner, had gone to it and had not breathed a word of it to him other than to join in the ribbing that occurred after their misadventures, that night, they’d had a screaming match about it. About keeping team dinners from team members, about Tony’s insecurities and compulsion to have people like him, and about not knowing what to do when their work and non-work lives clashed so horribly.

He’d stormed out after screaming terrible things at his boyfriend. He had driven home to his apartment in a rage, slammed the door shut (repeatedly), thrown a few things in his apartment before he cooled down abruptly. Ten minutes later, he had grabbed his keys and was on his way back down to go back to his boyfriend’s house to apologize when they met in the stairwell of his apartment building – the elevators were out of order again. And they had both apologized to each other, blurting it out practically at the same time. They’d barely made it back up to his apartment before tearing each other’s clothes off. The make-up sex had been awesome.

Things had been going so well since then. They seemed to have somehow achieved the balance of work and home, somehow. He had never been happier in his entire life, counting even the times when his mother had been alive.

And now this. OK. So maybe the worst part wasn’t that things had finally been great between them. The worst part was that his boyfriend, his boss, his mentor, had been in an explosion. He hadn’t died, thank god, because Tony wouldn’t have survived that. He would surely have eaten his gun had Jet not lived. But then, when those blue eyes lit on him and there had been no recognition, it was almost as if Jet had died. Jet no longer remembered who he was to him – hell, there was no ‘Jet’ left, only Gibbs, and barely that. Gibbs was stuck in a time warp, the last fifteen years wiped from his memory.

Which meant that he had been wiped from Gibbs’ memory.

Completely.

They’d spoken once in the hospital, soon after Gibbs had woken up. He had managed to get a word in alone, without that fucking Director honing in on his territory, but there was no sign that Jet was still in there. He had had to introduce himself, and Gibbs had given him that look, the one that said ‘why the fuck should I care who you are?’ The look that he had often given to people trying to provide false alibis for criminals. Those laser sharp blue eyes of his had looked at him as if he meant nothing, and he hadn’t been faking it. Or playing a cruel joke on him.

All Gibbs remembered was that his wife and daughter had just been killed. The secret wife and daughter that Tony had had to pretend to know nothing about.

Gibbs had completely forgotten him. The entire five years that they had been together, both professionally and personally, had been completely erased. Five whole years. Like it hadn’t even happened. Like Gibbs hadn’t been the one to pursue him, to convince him to get into bed with him even though he would be sleeping with his direct superior. To pretend to the world as if Rule 12 did not exist. Five whole years of fucking, fighting, protecting and loving each other gone, as if it hadn’t happened, because Gibbs couldn’t remember him.

Except _he_ remembered it all. Every single fucking moment, every happy memory, every awful fight, every stupid argument, every fit of laughter, every kiss, every delicious thrust of his dick, every single time he had called him ‘honey’ and smiled that smile at him, in the privacy of their own homes, far away from the complications of their workplace. He remembered everything, enough for the both of them. Enough to drown himself in bourbon every night. Even though he had been the son of alcoholics and had told himself he would never drink to get drunk, he did it. Every night for several weeks, until one of his frat brothers had come to his rescue.

He had been drowning, and nobody at work had noticed. Mark had flown in all the way from Seattle because he had heard something in Tony’s tone of voice when they spoke briefly on the phone. He had flown in and found Tony passed out on his sofa. Sure, it was a Saturday that he wasn’t on call, but he was passed out drunk at 1500. He had slept until 1000 that morning, having passed out on the sofa late the previous night, and had started on the bourbon conveniently still within reach, without even sitting up.

Mark had sobered him up and after he had been sworn to secrecy, he had been the only one that Tony had finally confided in about what had happened with Jet. Their secret relationship, the fact that they had been planning to move in together, the explosion, the memory loss, and finally being left behind.

Tony had told Mark about the unbearable hurt he was carrying because Gibbs couldn’t remember him after a five-year relationship, but that Ziva, who had only been with the team one year, _one_ fucking year – who cares that she had killed Ari her own half-brother, he had been a maniac, murderer and a psychopath – but _she_ had managed to bring him back somewhat. He had remembered her. But Gibbs had called _him_ McGee.

Mark had done his best that weekend, but he had had to go back to work. He called regularly though, to make sure that Tony did not regress back into the bottle. So he stayed sober.

Which meant he was intensely aware of Jet’s absence. Like a knife being twisted in his gut. It wasn’t enough to just stab him repeatedly. Each time, the knife had to be twisted to cause the most damage. And he didn’t even know what he was doing. Imagine if he did.

Maybe handing him his gun and badge and the old “You’ll do. This is your team now” wouldn’t have hurt as much if he had at least remembered him enough to know that it was true. He was ready to lead. Ready to have his own team. Personally hand-picked and professionally groomed by Gibbs for five years, plus the years of law enforcement under his belt prior to joining NCIS. He wasn’t just a goddamned stranger, convenient enough to be handed everything off to, like he didn’t even matter.

And as he left, Gibbs had told Ziva that he owed her. He owed her? For one act? What about all the times that he had saved Gibbs’ life? All the times he had been there for him. All the times they had depended on each other. None of that mattered because the fucking man did not remember him.

Fuck.

How could Gibbs have left them?

How could Jet forget him?

How could this hurt so much?

How was he supposed to get through this by himself? Mark had come and pulled him out of his funk, but now what was he supposed to do with himself? Non-work hours had been so filled with Jet for the past few years, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself anymore. He didn’t feel like going out or dating. He felt like he was in mourning, and unsure what exactly he was mourning. Jet? He was alive. Their relationship? Was it a relationship if he was the only one who remembered it? Love? He was still so full of love for the man, why would he mourn that?

For someone whose boyfriend was alive, and who hadn’t actually broken up with him, he sure felt like a widower and a jilted lover. But unlike a widower, he didn’t get sympathy from his friends and his co-workers. Because they didn’t know he’d lost someone. They were all suffering from losing the same person, but they didn’t know just how much he, Tony, had lost.

Tony had lost everything. Except for a tiny sliver of hope.

A tiny sliver of hope that Gibbs would come back. He was a Marine. His last words to them had been ‘Semper Fi’. He wouldn’t leave them behind. Not forever. He was always faithful. He clung to that tiny bit of hope that Gibbs would not, in the end, abandon them completely. And that tiny sliver of hope made him work his ass off, made him make sure that the team would not fall apart completely, that the team would be there for Gibbs, whenever he wanted to come back. And somehow, it was important that he, Tony, be the one to keep them together. As if when Gibbs came back, he would look at his team having been held together by the skin of Tony’s teeth, and it would all come flooding back to him, the reasons why he loved Tony. If he kept the team together for Gibbs, when he came back he would remember the reasons why they should move in together, or even to just be together again. Just remember him again. Remember that he loved him. Remember the reasons why he loved him.

So instead of drinking himself to oblivion every night, he practically stopped going home. He worked hard, harder than he’s ever worked for anything in his life, and this included the horrible physical therapy he had had to undergo after getting his leg broken playing football at OSU, the move that had ended his professional football aspirations. He did McGee’s job for him, and Ziva’s. He did practically all the team paperwork necessary for their cases, given that his team was falling apart despite his best efforts. They all needed Gibbs. He was a poor stand in. He was merely a placeholder and they not only knew it, but made it clear to him not only that they knew he wasn’t Gibbs but that he would never be their real Team Lead. They weren’t responding well to him and he didn’t dare ask them to do much more than what they were currently doing. He didn’t dare to ask them to actually do the jobs they were being paid to do. He would rather just do it all himself and get it right, rather than fight with his team, risk shoddy work, extra rework, or risk letting criminals go free due to improperly filed evidence and documentation or technicalities. He still did not want to do anything to possibly have McGee and Ziva leave the team before Gibbs could come back. But even through all of this, even if his team had no respect for him or for the job, or in the end, for Gibbs’ memory and legacy of case closure, he was not going to give up. No way.

So he worked his ass off. He did everything he could to make sure that they would all be there when Gibbs returned.

Some nights, he found himself at Jet’s house. Never a conscious decision, but some nights it helped him to sleep in Jet’s bed rather than his own sofa. Some nights, instead of sleeping he would air out Jet’s house, open all the windows to let in the fresh air and let out the stale, and he would clean it from top to bottom, scrubbing the floors, bleaching and sanitizing the bathrooms and kitchen even though it had not been used, and ruthlessly removing every speck of dust from every surface. It helped him to cope, and made the next few days easier for him somehow. Order was his friend. Cleanliness his sanity. As a child, his own personal hygiene and the cleanliness of his own room had been the only things he had ever had control over. And now, as an adult, when he felt like he was losing control, cleaning helped.

Jet used to find it amusing that his big bad federal agent boyfriend would stress out and need to start scrubbing the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush. So when he cleaned Jet’s house, he would imagine all the things he would have said to him, teasing him, trying to bring him down before he’d become the target of the next cleansing, as he used to say. This act of cleaning Jet’s house would calm him for the next few days, able to put up with the shit he had to put up with at work.

But then he finally gave up hope, a few months later. He gave up hope that Gibbs would return. He had finally stopped sleeping in Jet’s bed and going to his empty house just to sit on the stupid lumpy couch and stare at the familiar walls. He’d stopped scrubbing every bit of dust and dirt that he could find at Jet’s house in the unlikely case the man came home unexpectedly, he would not find his house a musty, dusty mess. He’d even gone so far as to pack all his things and bring it back to his apartment, his heart breaking even more as he was forced to do this. But even after he gave up hope, he still went on keeping his team together at work. Because what else was there for him to do? His life was empty without Jet. He needed work to fill the days. Work became everything to him. No case was ever turned down. No side projects too shady or risky. Who cared if he had no backup or if the undercover op was hinky? Who would mourn him if something happened anyway? Certainly not his good for nothing father. Only Jet would have, but Jet was no more. And in order to not think about life without Jet, he did everything he was asked to at work, and more.

A tiny part of him had wanted for at least Ducky to ask him if he was coping without Gibbs. At least Ducky. But everybody was too mired in their own pain to think about him. It was like his childhood all over again – for the most part, both his parents had been too involved in their relationships with the bottle to care about their only child. This systemic neglect had also been true at most of his previous jobs. Only Gibbs had ever been there for him, even when they were fighting. Even when Gibbs had cheated on him. He knew that Gibbs had only cheated on him because he didn’t know what to do with his feelings for him. Hell, he had cheated right back – he knew exactly how it had felt. But through it all, Gibbs had always thought about him and remembered him, never neglecting him. Even the terrible act of cheating on him had been a sign of how much Gibbs had loved him, because he’d had to do something to deliberately hurt him to try to deny his feelings. And it hadn’t worked. Gibbs was back asking him for forgiveness almost as soon as it happened. Gibbs’ attention to him had been reasons to never leave NCIS. But now this.

Well, there was Jimmy. Good kid. He meant well. He found time to speak to Tony. He might have been a little bit sad if something ever happened to him. But the reality was that Tony DiNozzo was all alone in the world now. All he had left was his work, and the now-automatic act of keeping his team together. For what purpose, right now, he really didn’t know. But at this point he’d been doing it for months. He didn’t know what else to do, and the thought of leaving them hurt him in ways he didn’t even understand.

It wasn’t like they were supportive of him. Or even really saw anything past the happy face and stupid frat boy mask that he put on. They probably thought he was happy Gibbs was gone. Motherfuckers.

Being neglected felt too much like his childhood, and it gave him every reason to leave, except if he left then the team would fall apart – he might be a placeholder but he was a damned good one – and if the team fell apart then it would have been like all those years with Jet had meant nothing. Had truly never happened. But he, Tony, hadn’t been in an explosion. He still loved Jet. He still wanted him back. He still loved his team, even if they didn’t really love him back. Keeping the team together became an act of love, a tribute to Gibbs’ own past care and love for him.

But in the end, it wasn’t even like he had a choice. Leave them? To go where? Somewhere else where nobody would know him or care about him? How would that have been better?

At least Jimmy cared about him here. And eventually Ducky would come back to himself and begin to talk to him like he mattered again. He would. He had faith in Ducky.

Ziva and McGee, well, they weren’t anything he had the energy to deal with. He just worked on getting through their cases and letting them go home after they finished what they thought were reports. It was all that he had the energy for. He could get to the real work of writing, re-writing and finalizing the documentation for each case in the hours past midnight, after they were all gone.

It wasn’t like he was sleeping if he went home anyway. He hadn’t slept in his bed since the explosion. He’d been sleeping on his sofa. The bed had been a gift from Jet during the second year of their relationship – a beautiful, handmade, beautifully carved wooden bed. Lovingly made by Jet with his own two hands. The first thing anyone had ever made for him in his life, and he’d been unable to hold back his tears when Jet had given the bed to him.

So, he threw himself into work and stopped thinking that he needed sleep. He napped a few hours each night, head on his desk, or if he was extra tired, he would sneak down to Forensics and sleep on Abby’s futon, making sure to leave way before she returned in the morning. The Director started asking him to do work under the table, unbeknownst to the rest of his team. His gut screamed that it was shady. But, shady op or not, at least the chick the fucking Director wanted him to date was beautiful. And nice. Not her fault her father was an arms dealer.

How could any of that not be a recipe for disaster?

And why was it that his last thought every night and first thought every morning, and almost every other thought of his every waking moment: Why didn’t Jet remember him?

Was this what rock bottom felt like?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More angst as Tony keeps discovering that he doesn't know what rock bottom is, and that maybe there really isn't a rock bottom for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that it doesn't resolve here. This is still Tony's POV and still full of angst. The resolution will come later, when we see Gibbs' POV which I'll make into its own story.

He’d been wrong. He hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. Nope. The absolute worst thing was that Gibbs came back. Gibbs came back – with that fucking moustache and what the hell was that hair about? – and he _still_ didn’t remember him. Rock bottom was having all his things dumped on his old desk, being demoted in public without a hint of an apology or even recognition of his months of keeping the fucking team together. And even worse, the complete lack of recognition in Gibbs’ eyes every time he tried to open his mouth to ask him if he remembered him, because the answer was obviously no, he did not.

Rock bottom was knowing that he’d come back when Ziva had needed him. And Ziva, instead of coming to him, her Team Lead for help, Ziva had called Gibbs. Ziva had a phone number for Gibbs, while he did not.

Rock bottom was knowing that even Fornell was more important to Gibbs than he was.

Rock bottom was knowing that Ziva and Fornell rated higher in Gibbs’ brain than he did. Even though he had been the one Gibbs had told about Shannon and Kelly years ago, he wasn’t even a glimmer in that swiss cheesed brain of his. He had been the one to celebrate Kelly’s birthdays with Gibbs, and Shannon’s, and been the one to mourn them with him on the anniversary of their deaths. He couldn’t get Gibbs to stay, but Ziva and Fornell could.

Rock bottom was turning down the Team Lead position in Rota, and not being able to explain the entire truth to Jenny Shepard, and knowing even then that she was still manipulating him and trying to get him to stay, despite the offer of the promotion – for the good of the super secret shady hinky op. But leaving Gibbs now that he’d returned – even if that fucking thing on his upper lip made him want to vomit – was out of the question.

Rock bottom was continuing to come to work, day after day, gazing at the man that he loved with all his heart who had once loved him back with all his heart, who still did not even remember a moment of their time together now.

Rock bottom was living the at-work lie about them all the time, because Jet didn’t come back. Only Gibbs did.

Rock bottom was still coming to work every day and being happy to just see his face, even if he had no clue who he was to him.

Rock bottom was knowing in his gut that something was hinky with Mike Franks and the whole Arkady Kobach debacle, and then being sidelined, coshed in the head by who he strongly suspected was Franks himself.

Rock bottom was knowing that Gibbs knew that he knew that Franks had hit him so hard as to give him a concussion, and that Gibbs not only did not hold Franks accountable for his actions, but even blamed him, Tony, for not keeping a better eye on Franks, as if Tony had struck himself on the head.

Rock bottom was taking comfort from the innocent, beautiful girl who he could tell was falling for him. After all he was a wounded soul. Women went for that sort of thing, especially women doctors who had set out to be one in order to care for people. All that pain simmering under the surface. They wanted to hold him and heal him and make him all better.

Rock bottom was that after months of Gibbs being back, his place on the team seemed precarious – Gibbs was holding him at arm’s length and putting him through his paces as if he were a probie again, and in a way that he’d never even had been tested because he’d worked a case with Gibbs before he’d been invited to join NCIS. Gibbs had known him and what he brought to the table even before he joined NCIS. But not now. Not anymore. Gibbs’ gut seemed to have failed him even with regard to Tony’s performance and ability at work.

Rock bottom was that Gibbs’ attitude towards him had been absorbed by Ziva and McGee, who were now even more defiant and disrespectful to him.

Rock bottom was being even more invisible to his teammates, now that Gibbs was back.

Rock bottom was the time Gibbs had knocked on his apartment door that one night, making him think that he’d been remembered for one heartbreakingly hopeful moment, and then awkwardly asked if they had been friends before the explosion, which would be a logical explanation for why Gibbs had his apartment key on his key chain, separated out from the other keys, a key that had scratches on it showing that it had been used and fairly often.

Rock bottom was the tantrum he then threw, breaking every dish and every glass that he owned after Gibbs left, still not remembering him, and after he had actually agreed that they had been friends before the explosion. But not mentioned that they had been more than just friends. Or just taken the key away as it had been Jet’s key, not Gibbs’.

Rock bottom was him sitting on the floor on his broken crockery, thinking about taking a particularly jagged piece and stabbing himself in the heart with it. Or at least opening the veins in his wrists with it.

Rock bottom was the unflagging need to clean, even after every bit of broken ceramic and glass had been swept up and disposed of, and he had cleaned his apartment all night, then gone in to work very early, cleaning his desk and all the items in and on his desk. He’d contemplated cleaning Ziva’s and McGee’s desks, under the guise of snooping through them, but he ran out of time.

Rock bottom was him finally taking an axe to his bed one Saturday morning, chopping the beautiful hand-made king-sized bed that Gibbs had made for him (for them) when he finally accepted that even though Gibbs was back, Jet would never return. So he had destroyed the bed that he couldn’t sleep in any more, the bed that had been a gift from his loving boyfriend. He had chopped it up into small, uniform pieces of wood – always uniform sized of course, or the crazy part of his brain that needed to see order over chaos (the same exact thing that allowed him to make those crazy leaps in order to solve a case) would have had another freak out – and then he took the axe and his knife to the mattress and box spring. Now nobody would ever sleep on their bed or their mattress ever again, not even him. Especially not him. Then he had hauled everything to a landfill in a rented truck, and spent the rest of the weekend ruthlessly scouring his apartment clean, as if he could scour away every memory of Jet that caused him pain.

Rock bottom was buying a small twin bed to replace the beautiful hand-made king-sized bed that his boyfriend had made for him. Because from now on, other than himself, nobody was ever going to set foot in his bedroom again.

Rock bottom was going out every night of the week, cases permitting, and going home with blue-eyed strangers, irrespective of gender for the express purpose of a quick fuck, and calling out Jet’s name every time he came.

Rock bottom? He kept discovering more depths to the bottom. He was in a deep ocean trench, and every time he thought he hit the bottom, he would stay there for a moment or two before falling off the ledge and resuming his unending descent.

The daughter of the arms dealer now loved him. And he sort of loved her back. After all she was the only person in the world who cared about him now. Who tried to get to know the real him – which of course he had to hide from her, she was an op, not really his girlfriend. Rock bottom was knowing that his fake girlfriend was the only one who genuinely gave a shit about him now. So how could he not love her back, at least a little bit?

Rock bottom was knowing that Jenny Shepard was using him in some kind of unfathomable way, and he had no backup or extraction plan, and not caring that he didn’t because if he died doing this then maybe he could stop hurting so badly.

Rock bottom was sleeping with this beautiful woman that he knew was innocent – he had tried convincing the Director of this but she’d refused to believe him – and taking comfort in her arms, even though everything was a lie.

Rock bottom was, despite her love for him, he could only give her only a small piece of his heart, because the rest of it belonged to another.

Rock bottom was watching Gibbs and Hollis Mann start a relationship and not be able to do anything about it. Other than his usual MO now, of going out every night he’s not with Jeanne or working, finding some blue-eyed stranger, and getting invited back to their place for some anonymous sex. But if by doing this, if he fucked someone while looking into eyes that reminded him of Jet, if that made the next day with him yet without him bearable, then that was what he would keep doing.

Rock bottom was watching Paula go to her grisly death and actually envying her her courage to do what she did, and desperately wishing that she had taken him with her.

Rock bottom was knowing he didn’t have the strength to just walk away from all of this, and pretend like none of it had ever happened. To go somewhere far away to start over again as a different Tony DiNozzo, one who didn’t love either the daughter of an arms dealer or the love of his life who no longer remembered him.

Rock bottom was the inability to even ask Gibbs to try to remember him. Not DiNozzo, but Tony. Not even Tony. Honey. What Jet had called him from the first time they’d got naked with each other. Honey, he’d said, because of his honey-gold skin, his honey brown hair, his honeyed tongue, his ass – honeybuns, Jet had teased him – the honey dust he’d loved for Jet to put on his skin and then kiss and lick off of his honey-gold skin.

Rock bottom was the fear that even if he did tell Gibbs the truth that he would still have no memory of them, and then what would be left for him?

Rock bottom was still crying himself to sleep over a year after his last time being with Jet.

Rock bottom was sitting in his little twin bed at night just looking at the gun in his hand longingly, knowing it could end all his pain, and yet not having the strength to go through with it.

Rock bottom was knowing what a coward he was.

Rock bottom was the worthlessness of his entire pathetic life and his inability to change it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following are the songs I listened to while writing this, but especially the Adele song :):
> 
> * [Don't You Remember](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYM0oL6RPvg) (Adele)  
> * [I Will Remember You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B51hO8McLbs) (Sarah McLachlan)  
> * [I Remember](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHiRYgooOK4) (Damien Rice)
> 
> The resolution will come in a separate story that will be from Gibbs' perspective.


End file.
